Who was Victor Klemperer? Why is his story important?

This website brings together quotes from his live as Jew in Nazi Germany between 1942 and 1945, linking them to the physical places where every day events took place.

If you are reading this on mobile, a full list of locations is available at the end of every page.

Victor Klemperer

Victor Klemperer was a Jewish Academic, teaching at the University of Dresden. His marriage to his “Aryan” wife Eva and being a WW1 veteran gave him some protection from prosecution during the 3rd Reich.
Throughout the Hitler years he keeps diaries, creating a detailed record every day life in a dictatorship.
After the war he remained in the Russian-occupied zone, believing the communist administration is better at breaking with the past.
Despite his uneasiness with the communist system, even comparing its language to the Lingua Tertii Imperii, he still joined the party and parliament and became part of the political establishment. As he tried to navigate the complexities of his time, balancing conflicting values and ambitions, he was fully aware of his own contradictions. He continued his diaries The Lesser Evil: The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1945-1959 until his death.

Eva Klemperer

Eva Klemperer's Passport

Eva Klemperer was Victor’s “Aryan” wife. She was a trained concert pianist and worked as a music teacher. She later supported Victor as his secretary. She stood by him throughout the years and moved with him to the various “Jews Houses”. Victor Klemperer survived because of her refusal to divorce him, and he was very aware of this dependency.

A remarkable woman I would have liked to find out more about: Her courage to make regular trips to Annemarie Koehler in Pirna, to hide his diaries at risk of her own life, her smoking habit in the grimmest moments, her seeing opportunity in the chaotic aftermath of the Dresden bombing, her taking charge of their escape to Bavaria.

I did some research on her, sadly there doesn’t seem to be much about her online. The most comprehensive information I could find was on her German Wikipedia Page.

Copy of Eva Klemperer’s passport, Credit: © Deutsche Fotothek / Regine Richter

Annemarie Köhler

Another courageous women, again not much is known about her.
Annemarie Köhler was Eva Klemperer’s friend. She lived and worked as GP in Pirna,a small town just half an hour outside Dresden, at what is now Maxim-Gorki-Straße 16.
Eva traveled there by train with the diaries in her bag, for Annemarie to hide them at her house. Like Eva she risked her own life, by doing so. Only recently a plaque has been installed to commemorate her.

Why Victor Klemperer’s story is relevant today

It is 2026 and I see groups of people being singled out again, blamed for all ills of society, criminalised and turned into easy targets for abuse.

As a reminder: Germany did not turn Nazi from one day to the next. The change was gradual: name calling and intimidating opponents, scapegoating minorities, normalising violence.
Victor Klemperer diaries were written at a moment in time, recording seemingly disconnected events. Only in hindsight did patterns became clear which eventually led to the destruction of Europe and the murder of millions of people.
When similar patterns become visible today, we better pay attention now.

There are always choices. Even in a dictatorship, and more so today, everyone of us, has a choice on what to do, on personal red lines, on humanistic values, on universal human rights that apply to all.

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